Providing a header compression server within a network, as well as a method and network station

摘要

The invention is related with the problem of utilizing data compression in a network of distributed stations. Often header compression is used to improve the bandwidth usage in networks, in particular wireless networks. Header compression could be implementations in access points or routers, but both implementations have serious problems, e.g. due to limited CPU power, lack of scalability, or handover latency.
To resolve the problems the invention proposes to use a dedicated data compression server in the network and a new protocol to transparently deploy data compression in the network.
Compression enabled stations register at the compression server and obtain a filter to prevent them answering to ARP requests provided from non compression enabled stations. The requests are then answered by the compression servers.